The Dark Room (16 page)

It was hopeless.
‘I’m not unhappy,’ she said with a forced smile. ‘I feel great. I’m looking forward to going home.’
Why was sympathy so
unbearable?
‘Look, let’s put these flowers in my room and then go for a walk.’
Stupid woman! Fifty yards would see her on her knees.

‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’ he asked, pushing himself to his feet.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said briskly. ‘I keep telling you, I’m fine.’ She set off ahead of him so he wouldn’t see her face. ‘Believe me, I
don’t intend to stay here very long. They’ve already said I’m mentally fit to go home, now all I need to do is prove I’m physically fit.’
Who the hell did she think
she was kidding?
‘It’s in here,’ she said, putting one groggy leg over the sill of the french windows and hauling herself towards a chair.

The flowers slipped from her fingers on to the floor. She felt Josh’s arms closing about her and saw murky images floating on the swollen river of her memory.

43 Shoebury Terrace, Hammersmith, London – 4.00 p.m.

Fraser rang the doorbell of number forty-three and asked Mrs Helms if Meg had given any indication that she intended to vacate her flat after her holiday.

‘Not in so many words,’ said the stout woman thoughtfully, ‘but, now you come to mention it, there was a lot of coming and going shortly before they left. I
remember saying to my Henry, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a change in that direction. Then she asked me to feed Marmaduke and it rather went out of my mind, except that she was
insistent the poor creature shouldn’t go into any of the rooms. Keep him in the hall, Mrs H, she said, thrusting a tin of cat food at me. What’s going to happen to him now? Henry
won’t have him anywhere near, but then he’s not well, you know.’

‘We’ll do our best to sort something out,’ said Fraser, ‘but in the meantime perhaps you could go on feeding the cat?’

‘I won’t let him starve,’ she said grudgingly, ‘but something ought to be done before too long. That stuffy hallway’s no place to keep an
animal.’

He agreed with her. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know what Miss Harris did for a job, would you, Mrs Helms?’

‘Seems to me you know very little about her, Sergeant. Are you sure you’ve got the right person?’

He nodded. ‘Her job?’ he prompted.

‘She called herself a headhunter. Used to be with a big consultancy firm in the City, then set up on her own about five years ago.’ She spread her hand and made a rocking
gesture with it. ‘But it wasn’t going too well from what I could gather. People are scared to give notice because of the recession, and you can’t hunt heads when there are no
vacancies to fill.’

‘Any idea what her company is called?’

‘No. We talked about Marmaduke and the milkman from time to time but other than that’ – she shrugged – ‘we were just neighbours. Nothing special.
Nothing close. I’m sorry she’s gone, though. She never gave us any trouble.’

Fraser found himself dwelling on that last sentence as he walked the few yards to the DI’s car. ‘She never gave us any trouble’ was the most depressing epitaph he
had ever heard.

Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 4.00 p.m.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Alan Protheroe, reaching for Jinx’s wrist and feeling for a pulse. He wondered who this man was and why he’d started so
violently at the sound of the voice behind him.

‘Well, look at her for God’s sake,’ said Josh in desperation, laying her slack head on the pillow and lowering her gently on to the bed. ‘I think she’s
dying.’

‘No chance. Built like a tank this one.’ He let the wrist go. ‘She’s asleep.’ He looked at the man’s pinched nostrils and frightened eyes.
‘You look in worse shape than she is.’

‘I thought she was dying.’ He leaned his hands on the side of the bed to steady himself. ‘Now I feel sick. Jesus, I’m not sure I can take much more of this. I
haven’t slept in days, not since Simon Harris phoned to say Jinx was dead.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘Because Betty Kingsley got rat-arsed and phoned Meg’s mother. Told the poor woman her daughter was a murderer.’

Alan gestured towards the terraced area beyond the windows. ‘Let’s go and sit outside. I’m Dr Protheroe.’ He took the man’s arm and supported him.

‘Josh Hennessey.’ He allowed Alan to lead him through the windows. ‘One minute she said she was fine, the next her eyes rolled up and – wham!’ He
slumped on to a wooden bench and buried his face in his hands. ‘I wish to hell she wouldn’t keep pretending she’s OK when she’s not. She was the same when Russell was
murdered. Kept saying: I’m fine, and then ended up in hospital.’

‘You’ve known her a long time?’

He nodded. ‘Twelve years. As long as I’ve known Meg. I’m Meg Harris’s partner,’ he explained. ‘We run a recruitment consultancy.’ He bunched
his fists angrily. ‘Or we did until she buggered off and left me high and dry with a bank manager baying for blood and work in progress with people I’ve never even heard of.’

Alan could feel the stress flowing off him in waves of anger and nerves. ‘I see.’

‘Do you? I sure as hell don’t. Presumably you know Meg’s hijacked Jinx’s fiancé? I mean, have you any idea what that’s doing to Meg’s
parents? First they get a phone call out of the blue to say Leo’s jilted Jinx for her, then the next thing they hear is that Jinx has killed herself. Jesus! And on top of all that, I’m
left in the bloody lurch, trying to run an office on my own, while Meg’s farting about in France with a prize bastard.’ His voice broke. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s
going on.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m so fucking tired.’

Alan watched him sympathetically for a moment or two. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I think you’re worrying unnecessarily on Jinx’s account. All things
considered, she’s doing well.’

‘Simon warned me she looked ill, but I wasn’t expecting this.’ He jerked his head towards her room. ‘She’s much worse than I thought she was going to
be.’

‘She probably isn’t, you know. Look, she took a heck of a crack on the head and she’s forgotten a couple of weeks out of her life, but that’s all. She’s
a tough lady. Give her another week or two and she’ll be good as new. It’s only a matter of time.’

Josh stared at his hands. ‘You’ve probably never seen her with hair. She’s a bit of a stunner. Very Italian looking.’ He touched a hand to his shoulder.
‘Thick black hair to here, and dark eyes. I’ve always thought it’s crazy her being on the business end of the camera when she should have been in the frame.’ He fell
silent.

‘You sound fond of her.’

‘I am, but my timing’s lousy. When I was free, she was married. When she was free, I was married.’ He looked away towards the trees bordering the lawn. ‘Then
I got divorced and Leo muscled in on the act. Do you reckon she still loves him?’

‘She says she doesn’t.’

Josh twisted his head to examine the older man’s face. ‘Do you believe her?’

‘I do, yes.’

‘Why?’

Alan shrugged. ‘She isn’t angry enough with Meg.’ But
you
certainly are, he was thinking.

The Vicarage, Littleton Mary, Wiltshire – 4.00 p.m.

Charles Harris laid down his pen and folded his hands across the sermon he was writing. ‘This has to stop, Caroline. You’re working yourself into hysterics over
nothing. Meg will phone when she’s ready. And let’s face it,’ he added rather dryly, ‘ “when Meg is ready” are the operative words. Judging by the frequency of
her calls and visits in the past, you and I could go to hell and back without her even being aware of it. She’s always been far more interested in whichever man she has in tow than
she’s ever been in us.’

Caroline looked at him with dislike. ‘That’s what you hate, isn’t it? The men.’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ he snapped. There were times when he had to restrain himself from hitting her. ‘Must we go through this again?’ he said, picking up
his pen and returning to his sermon. ‘I do have work to do.’ He made a note in the margin.

‘It shocked you to hear about her and Russell, didn’t it?’ she said spitefully.

‘Yes, it did.’

‘Your little Meggy in the arms of a man old enough to be her father. She loved him, you know.’

He kept his eyes on the page but found he couldn’t write anything because his hand was shaking.

‘Does it offend you to think of your daughter enjoying sex with old men when she can’t even bear to be in the same house with you?’

‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘what offends me is her shabbiness towards her best friend. Between us, you and I created a monster, Caroline.’

Chapter Nine

Saturday, 25 June, Nightingale Clinic, Salisbury – 6.00 p.m.

JINX HAD RESUMED
her vantage point under the beech tree, dark glasses firmly in place, anonymity restored. To observers, she was an object of curiosity, this thin,
gaunt woman who sat alone and used the protective fronds of the hanging branches to hide behind. Almost, thought Alan Protheroe, watching her from the french window in his office, like a bird in a
cage, for it was her loneliness that impressed him most. He wondered if it was advisable or possible to unlock the iron control that she exercised upon her emotions, for he was doubtful that
happiness was a condition to which Jinx aspired. She couldn’t bear to be so vulnerable.

‘I’m relieved,’ she said when he’d asked her if she was happy that her bandages had been removed. ‘Only children know how to be happy.’

‘And were you happy as a child, Jinx?’

‘I must have been. The smell of baking bread always puts me in a good mood.’ She smiled slightly at his frown of puzzlement. ‘My father wasn’t always a rich
man. I remember being a small child and living in a two-up, two-down in London somewhere. My mother did all her own cooking and baked all her own bread, and I can’t smell warm bread now
without wanting to turn somersaults.’

‘Which mother was that? Your real mother or your stepmother?’

She looked confused suddenly. ‘I suppose it was my stepmother. I was too young to remember anything my mother did.’

‘Not necessarily. We begin to store emotions at a very young age, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t remember happiness from when you were a toddler,
particularly if it was followed by a period of unhappiness.’

She looked away. ‘Why should it have been?’

‘Your mother died, Jinx. That must have been an unhappy time for you and your father.’

She shrugged. ‘If it was, I don’t remember it. Which is sad in itself. Death should make an impact, don’t you think? It’s awful how quickly we forget and move
on to something new.’

‘But very important that we do,’ he replied, ‘otherwise we become like Miss Havisham in
Great Expectations
and sit for ever at an empty table.’

She smiled. ‘If I remember my Dickens, poor old Miss Havisham was jilted by her fiancé on her wedding day and spent the rest of her life in her bridal gown with the
remains of the banquet all around her. Hardly the most tactful parallel you could have drawn. In the circumstances, wedding plans are not a subject I particularly want to dwell on.’

‘Then let’s talk about something you
would
like to dwell on. What makes you feel alive?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. I prefer the peacefulness of feeling nothing. For every up there’s a down and I hate the sadness of disappointment.’

‘Relationships don’t have to be disappointing, Jinx. Far more often than not, they represent the sort of fulfilment most of us long for. Do you not think that’s a
goal worth pursuing?’

‘Are we talking marriage and children, Dr Protheroe?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘Did Josh Hennessey tell you he fancied me?’

He chuckled. ‘Not in so many words, but he seems fond of you.’

‘He’s far fonder of Meg than he is of me,’ she said dismissively. ‘Too fond, really. She treats him like a brother because business and pleasure don’t
mix, when all
he
wants to do is fuck her. Also, he was fond of his wife when he married her,’ she added tartly, ‘but he walked out on her four years later because he claimed she
was boring. Is that the kind of fulfilling relationship you want me to have?’

‘I doubt he’d find you boring, Jinx, but in any case, that’s a side issue. What I think we’re talking about is contentment.’

She gave a low laugh. ‘Well, I’m a good photographer, and that makes me content. If I’m remembered for just one photograph, then that will be immortality enough. I
don’t need any other. It’s a birth of sorts, you know. Your creation emerges from the darkness of the developing room with a similar sense of achievement as a baby emerging from the
womb.’

‘Does it?’

She shrugged again. ‘I think so. Admittedly the only birth I can compare it with was a rather messy business in the lavatory, but I imagine going to term and producing a living
child is somewhat more rewarding. Yes, I’d say the sense of achievement in those circumstances is not dissimilar.’ Her face was devoid of expression. ‘By the same token, I imagine
there’s the same sense of disappointment when the result of your hard work is less than you’d hoped for. Works of art, be they children or photographs, can never be perfect.’ She
hesitated a moment. ‘I suppose if you’re lucky, they might be interesting.’

After that she had excused herself politely and walked outside, leaving Protheroe to wonder if she was talking about her own hopes of the child she had lost or her father’s
hopes of her. Although perhaps she was talking about neither. He reflected on the two unmarried brothers who still lived at home and who, if Jinx’s closed expression when their names were
mentioned was any guide, had little love for their intellectually gifted sister.

He was about to turn away from the office window and his contemplation of her seated, solitary figure when he noticed a man approaching across the lawn.
Now where the hell had he
come from?
For no obvious reason, other than that he was responsible for Jinx’s safety and she was clearly unaware that anyone was behind her, he felt a sense of imminent danger and, with
a flick of his long fingers, turned the key in the lock and thrust the door wide. With farther to travel than the other, he raised his voice in a bluff bellow. ‘There you are, Jinx!’ he
called. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’